December 1, 2014 — Maine's scallop fishing season is set to begin amid concerns of crowding in the rebuilding fishery.
The 2014-15 scallop season began on Monday. Maine fishery regulators have used a battery of restrictions and regulations to rebuild the fishery in recent years. The fishery has grown from about 33,000 pounds in 2005 to more than 400,000 pounds in 2013.
Read the full story from the Associated Press from MBPN News
Maine boat captains who take recreational fishermen offshore will find out next year if they can stay in business without catching the one fish their customers crave – codfish.
Federal regulators last week approved rules that ban the possession of cod by any recreational fishermen in the Gulf of Maine for the fishing year that starts May 1.
Recreational fishermen could still pack their coolers with other groundfish, such as haddock, redfish and hake, but customers want cod because of its iconic status and because it’s a large fish that provides lots of good-tasting meat, say people who operate boats that cater to recreational fishermen.
The survival of their businesses now will depend on their ability to sell the appeal of other species, says Barry Gibson, captain of a charter boat that operates out of East Boothbay.
“They will have to re-market, reinvent themselves without cod,” he said. “It’s going to be tough.”
Gibson said the ban on cod possession will likely remain for two years, and could possibly last a generation if cod stocks don’t recover. In past years, a ban on cod possession lasted for only a few months. During those months, business dropped by half, said Tim Tower, who runs Bunny Clark Deep Sea Fishing in Ogunquit.
During a recent ban, some of his customers were unhappy when told about the restrictions, he said.
“They said, ‘We won’t be going out fishing again until we can keep cod,’ ” Tower said.
Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald
LONG ISLAND, Maine — November 29, 2014 — On a clear day, the mainland and surrounding islands of Casco Bay are easy to see from Long Island. On this particular day, though, the rain was driving and a heavy, damp fog had settled over the island town.
From the cab of his noisy old truck, Will Hickok pointed out several community landmarks, like the old dance hall, the filling station at the general store and the island’s school house, most of which appear to be from a bygone era.
A lobster fisherman, known to his friends as “Wild Bill,” Hickok is mourning the passing of his fellow islander Steve “Mike” Hanson, who died Nov. 19 from a head injury after falling at his home.
Hanson, 59, lived on Long Island with his wife and their 14-year-old son. A lobster fisherman by trade, he used his skills as a handyman to do work for and help his neighbors. He wasn’t born on the island, but he was appreciated, and his death hit hard among the small isolated town’s 200 year-round residents.
“He would do anything for anybody and not expect a dime,” Peachie Stevens, 71, a Long Island lifer who runs Peachie’s Golf Cart Rentals, told the BDN the day after Hanson’s body was discovered by two islanders walking to catch a ferry.
November 28, 2014 — It's OK again to fish in the waters off Jersey City and Bayonne, the state Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement today.
The broken sewer main in Jersey City that had been leaking water raw sewage into the Lower Hudson River, Upper New York Bay and the Kill Van Kull has been repaired, state officials said in lifting the advisory that was issued on Nov. 21.
The city's Municipal Utilities Authority completed temporary repairs early Thanksgiving Day morning and restored sewer service, ending the discharge of untreated sewage.
Read the full story from NJ.com
November 24, 2014 — U.S. District Court Judge H. Russel Holland issued a preliminary injunction Monday, temporarily halting the EPA’s 404(c) process regarding the Pebble Mine.
The process allows the EPA to restrict or prohibit projects that could have adverse effects on fishery areas.
The Pebble Partnership contends the EPA violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which ensures advisory committees are objective and accessible to the public, while developing the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment.
“The preliminary injunction basically says that the EPA can’t take further steps in their preemptive process against Pebble until the merits of this case have more time in front of the court,” Mike Heatwole, spokesperson for the Pebble Limited Partnership, said.
The EPA initiated the 404(c) process at the end of February, alleging the Pebble Mine would have significant and irreversible negative impacts on the Bristol Bay watershed.
Read the full story and listen to the audio at Alaska Public Radio
November 26, 2014 — Four leases for 742,000 acres of sea south of Martha's Vineyard – a area roughly the size of Rhode Island – will be put up for bid at a wind power auction on Jan. 29.
If leased and developed by the power industry, the area has the potential to provide wind-generated electricity to 1.4 million homes, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which announced the auction date Monday and pitched it as part of President Barack Obama's climate action plan and efforts to reduce carbon pollution.
The area stretches 33 nautical miles from north to south and 47 nautical miles from east to west and is the largest offshore wind tract in federal waters in the United States.
Read the full story from MassLive.com
November 24, 2014 — The following was released by the Atlantic Salmon Federation:
Just before the big rains in October, the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) completed two fish passage projects in the Penobscot watershed and one in the East Machias watershed as part of its ongoing Maine Headwaters Project. These projects will directly benefit Atlantic salmon, alewives, blueback herring, eels, and brook trout. Together, they open up full access to 10,000 acres of ponds and lakes and reconnect over 100 miles of streams previously blocked by impassable dams.
In the Penobscot watershed, a Denil fishway was completed below Pushaw Lake in the Town of Hudson. This project was begun in 2012, but high water prevented its completion until this fall. In September, an Alaskan Steeppass fishway was installed below a Town of Carmel bridge on Soudabscook Stream. This marked the culmination of 15 years of work in this watershed by ASF.
On the East Machias, a failed, old wooden fishway was replaced by a modern concrete Denil fishway below Crawford and Pocomoonshine lakes. This was a joint project with the Downeast Salmon Federation (DSF), a local ASF affiliate that is working to restore salmon in all the Downeast rivers. DSF provided local community outreach and project coordination.
“With the Penobscot River Restoration Project moving closer to full implementation, efforts to improve fish passage on tributaries like Pushaw Stream and Souadabscook Stream take on even more meaning,” said Pat Keliher, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). “The work of groups like the ASF is important to help DMR meet its goals for restoring sea-run fisheries in Maine.”
ASF’s Maine Headwaters Project is focused on reconnecting key spawning tributaries to the large rivers and Gulf of Maine. There is both a tremendous need and opportunity to focus on these clogged tributaries. Of the estimated 2,000 dams in the State of Maine, over 90 percent are located in tributary streams where critical spawning habitat for migratory fish is found. Many of these dams no longer serve their original purpose, have no fishways and are often a liability for their owner. Many others are outlet dams on ponds and lakes that also lack any type of fish passage and are owned by lake associations with few financial resources.
“The best chance we have to restore Atlantic salmon in Maine is to focus on restoring the full native assemblage of migratory fish with which they evolved and depend on for food and protection,” said Andrew Goode, ASF’s Vice President of US Programs. “These three projects will provide access to long lost spawning grounds for salmon and river herring such as alewives.”
ASF’s approach is to work collaboratively with willing dam owners to craft a solution that fits their needs while allowing for restoration of Atlantic salmon and other migratory fish. This work often begins with community outreach and education and is followed by conceptual and final engineering designs, permitting, construction and post-project monitoring. The funds come from a combination of public and private grants as well as in-kind assistance.
Over the past decade, ASF’s Maine Headwaters Project has completed 20 fish passage projects restoring access to 18,500 acres of lakes and ponds and almost 400 river miles. As a result, this past spring, 170,000 alewives returned to Blackman Stream in the Penobscot watershed through a fishway constructed at the Leonard’s Mills Dam in 2009.
Partnerships with state and federal resource agencies have been critical to the success of ASF’s Maine Headwaters Project. Restoring alewives and blueback herring to the Penobscot and Downeast watersheds is a key goal of the state and federal fisheries agencies. Migratory fish play an important role in the river’s ecology as they travel to and from the sea, bringing in nutrients and in many cases taking out excess phosphorous from Maine’s lakes and ponds.
Engineers with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service have been instrumental in developing conceptual designs for fishways. “The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has been a partner in ASF’s work for the past 15 years and we were excited to provide technical assistance and funding to help make these projects possible,” said Laury Zacari with the Service's Maine Field Office.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Community Habitat Restoration Center has also provided funding for fish passage projects and technical assistance.
“The NOAA Restoration Center was pleased to be a part of all three projects, including providing significant funding for construction” said Matt Bernier, a civil engineer with NOAA Fisheries, who helped oversee the fishway designs. “Alewives, as a member of the larger community of sea run fish, are critically important to various life stages of Atlantic salmon and other fish and wildlife in rivers such as the Penobscot and East Machias.”
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, as well as groups such as The Nature Conservancy in Maine and the Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program, also provided significant funding to these projects.
The Atlantic Salmon Federation is dedicated to the conservation, protection and restoration of wild Atlantic salmon and the ecosystems on which their well-being and survival depend. ASF has a network of seven regional councils (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Maine and Western New England). The regional councils cover the freshwater range of the Atlantic salmon in Canada and the United States.
November 25, 2014 — A proposal to close a portion of Stellwagen Bank to recreational fishing is the subject of a public hearing tonight from 6 until 8 at the Radisson Hotel on Water Street in Plymouth.
The New England Fishery Management Council will be accepting public comment on its plans to protect fish habitats, which includes the possible closing of some 55 square miles of Stellwagen Bank to recreational and charter-boat ground fishing.
The public comment period ends January 8.
November 19, 2014 — The group convened this morning in the lobby of the Newport Marriott and included about 20 fishermen, fishing advocates and officials from the state Department of Marine Fisheries.
The setting was casual and the goal was simple: Find some common ground between the desires of the fishermen to fish and that of the regulators to implement more cod spawning protection in the Gulf of Maine.
"It was more of a negotiation than anything else," said Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition. "It wasn't always easy."
Meeting or negotiation, it really didn't matter.
What did matter was that, when the New England Fishery Management Council voted several long hours later on area closings, it handed groundfishermen from Massachusetts and New Hampshire the first — albeit small — victory they've had in quite some time.
After defeating an initial motion that would have uniformly and concurrently instituted spawning closures in four prime fishing areas that surround Gloucester, the council opted for another series of seasonal closures that at least hold out a chance of survival to the imperiled groundfishermen.
"I think the inshore fishermen walked away feeling that, as long as we can get the quota situation straightened out, they'll have the ability to keep working and keep fishing," Giacalone said. "This at least balances the needs of the inshore fleet with the concerns about cod spawning."
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times
November 20, 2014 — NOAA Fisheries issued emergency measures last week to protect Gulf of Maine cod. On the heels of this emergency action, the New England Fishery Management Council has recommended new restrictions to address the depleted cod population, as it finalizes next year’s fishing management measures for several fish.
The new management plan would go into effect next May, after NOAA Fisheries reviews and approves those recommendations first. Between now and then, the emergency measures are in effect, because the cod stock in the Gulf of Maine is at an all-time low, according to the latest data.
Christopher Brown, president of the Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Association, reassures none of these fishing restrictions will have a direct impact on Rhode Island fishermen.
“The cod fish that we catch are not considered to be Western gulf of Maine cod,” said Brown. “The cod we catch are considered to be Georges Bank cod. It’s a different stock complex.”
Bob Ballou, assistant to the director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, agrees with Brown. He said Rhode Island fishermen target a range of fish species, whereas fishermen in the Gulf of Maine primarily rely on groundfish. And they don't have the flexibility to switch to other species, such as squid, butterfish, or scallops, to make up for the inability to harvest groundfish.
Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio